mark.waltz In 1942's "All Through the Night", Nazi Conrad Veidt tried to get American sportsman Humphrey Bogart on his side by pointing out his non- conformity as patriot. It didn't work for Bogart, and it doesn't work for Warren William, here equally on the outside, yet still patriotic as he goes out of his way to expose Nazi spies in London while being accused of being a traitor. With Scotland Yard searching for them (not to mention New York detectives Thurston Hall and Fred Kelsey, ironically in London on other business), William and valet Eric Blore have their share of hiding to do, although with Kelsey on the trail, it'll be fairly easy to outwit them and trap the villains.Clever plot line has innocent William being guided by blindfold with the help of Blore through London to disguise himself and pick up clues simply by sound and not with sight. Hilary Brooke is the pretty Scotland Yard worker who suspects him of the worst and finds out the hard way of the truth. Lloyd Bridges has a small part as a waiter with Nazi leanings, and Forrest Tucker is also one of the bad guys. B features made on cheap budgets often looked as good as the A's and were often better. This is a perfect example of why they are used as research by film students.

bkoganbing Wartime restrictions being what they were if Great Britain had some kind of secret weapon called a beam detector, we couldn't get too specific about it. Suffice it to say the Nazis want the plans for it real bad and it's in the safe of British spy-master Stanley Logan who gets himself killed. For some plot reason I can't quite fathom Logan's aide Leslie Denison is kidnapped by the Nazi spies and its the other aide Morton Lowry who actually is betraying his country. Or is it his country, spy ring head Kurt Katch uses a German name to refer to him, I suspect he was one of those British citizens with German ancestry pressed into service for the fatherland like Peter Graves was in Stalag 17.But these Nazis haven't reckoned with the fact that Logan hired the Lone Wolf to ferret out that spy ring. With the beam detector plans as bait, Warren William goes on his mission and while it doesn't go as smoothly as a Mission Impossible mission the job gets done.Whenever these pulp or even classical heroes like Sherlock Holmes got shoehorned into a World War II flag-waver the results didn't really make for lasting cinema. The same can be said for Counter-Espionage. Two future players of note, Forrest Tucker and Lloyd Bridges are a pair of Katch's associates. The film is noteworthy for early appearances by Bridges and Tucker and little else.

sol (There are Spoilers) Using both his skills as a second story man, burglar,and canine-like hearing the Lone Wolf Michael Lanyard, Warren Williams, breaks up a Nazi spy ring right in the middle of bombed out London and does it in less then a fortnight. The movie seems to take place in under 12 hours where we don't get to see as much as a sunrise or sunset.Being called to help England in it's life and death struggle against Nazi Germany by top British Government official Sir. Stafford Hart, Stanly Logan, Lanyard goes undercover as more of an opportunist then Nazi spy stealing out of Sir. Stanly's house safe vital information that the Nazis are just dying to get their hands on;The ultra-top secret British Military beam-detection plan. Getting in touch, by being kidnapped, with the head of the Nazi spy ring Gustave Soessel, Kurt Katch, Lanyard for a nice hunk of cash is willing to turn the beam-detection plan over but needs time to get back to where he hide it, in his hotel-room, for safe keeping.This all of curse is a trick on Lanyard's part to get Soessel and his gang that includes Nazi spy Kent or Kurt Wells (Morton Lowery), who's working in Sir Stanly's office, out in the open and have them arrested by Scotland Yard. When Sir. Stanly is suddenly killed in a German bombing raid Lanyard is on his own, with the late Sir Stanley being the only one who's knows that he's really a double-agent for Britin,in proving to the British M15 and Scotland Yard that he's in fact on their side and avoid being executed, if captured by them, as a Nazi Spy.With the help of his faithful velvet or butler Jamison, Eric Blore, Lanyard who was blindfolded when he was taken to the Nazi spies hideout uses his super-hearing to track the place down at the Blue Parrot Café. It's there that Lanyard sets a trap for Soessle & Co. who by then realize that he's a British spy by tricking them into thinking that he gave them the real McCoy, the beam-detection plan, only to hand them over on a silver platter to the British authorities who came to his rescue.Lots of wartime activity, with London being bombed by the Luftwaffe at least three times in a 12 hour period, has "Counter-Espionage" being one of the most action-packed of the "Lone Wolf" series of movies. In the movie "Counter-Espionage" there's a very young looking Forrest Tucker as Anton Schugg a German Nazi with a very pronounced American mid-western accent. There's also in the movie this contraption used by Soessel to communicate with his bosses back in Berlin that's a forerunner to a FAX Machine that didn't come into common use for at least thirty years after the film was made.

Neil Doyle This is my favorite among all the Lone Wolf films TCM has been showing lately, starring WARREN WILLIAM as the master sleuth who's always one step ahead of Scotland Yard. This fast-paced adventure is directed by Edward Dmytryk in taut and suspenseful style. Audiences always enjoyed watching the Nazi menace get its comeuppance in these sort of stories. Here FORREST TUCKER and MORTON LOWRY are cast as baddies who are helping the Nazis get hold of top secret plans for the destruction of England.The man who gets his hands on the plans is, of course, The Lone Wolf, who, along with assistance from the ever humorous ERIC BLORE (his loyal valet), must get to the bottom of the spy ring's plans in order to acquit himself of the suspicious Scotland Yard inspector (THURSTON HALL) and his cronies. For a change, HILLARY BROOKE has a sympathetic role as a woman who at first suspects The Lone Wolf of being on the wrong side of things, but soon discovers the truth.It's a pleasure seeing MORTON LOWRY, a fine supporting actor, given a role with some dimension to it in strong support, and FORREST TUCKER doing well with his Nazi officer role. Easily one of the most enjoyable of all the Lone Wolf films, primarily because the plot is a lot less cluttered than usual and easy to follow.